


Broken Things

by Jaydeun



Series: Broken Things [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Accidents, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Loss, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Healing, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Strong Female Characters, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-31 23:55:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20248741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydeun/pseuds/Jaydeun
Summary: “A--angel,” Crowley groaned into the phone. “M’hurt.”Aziraphale’s heart slammed into the back of his sternum.“I’m coming! I’ll be right there—” he said, remembering suddenly that he didn’t know where. “How do I find you?”There was a terrible sound stirring on the other line. Ragged, awful breathing. It scraped itself together to form the word Tadfield. Just that. Nothing else. The line had gone dead. Aziraphale’s throat constricted violently: Crowley was hurt? How could he be? Unless Hell—or Heaven—? A moment later and the doors slammed shut behind him with enough force to jostle his unfinished wine.





	Broken Things

**Author's Note:**

> This work was created for the 2019 Good Omens Fan Exchange, on Twitter as #GOFanExchange. Prompt: ways of saying I love you--in pain, as a goodbye. Much angst, but also a Happy Ending.
> 
> For a better resolution of the image, try https://www.deviantart.com/jaydeun/art/Broken-Things-809594730

  


**Broken Things**

Chapter 1

IT HAD BEEN an uneventful Thursday. Rain pattered against the bookshop windows and even the hum of SoHo had softened. Aziraphale settled for dinner in and had tipped the delivery fellow an extra five for the sheer delight of watching his face light up. It was the only face he’d seen all day. Not that he was complaining. Late autumn, early dark, the smell of curried lamb and his turntable crackling to Beethoven’s ninth symphony—little short of perfect, really. Wasn’t it?

The angel leaned back slightly in his desk chair, swirling a glass of pinot noir. Not the _best _pinot noir, but he _was _drinking alone. He saved the good vintages for company, and he only really had one sort of company. He’d seen a lot of Crowley in the days leading up to the end that wasn’t, and quite a bit of him the first few days after. Aziraphale smiled, warm at first, but then squeezing itself into a slightly pained expression. You _could_ have too much of a good thing, though. Alcohol, for one. And…his eyes flitted toward his slightly corpulent middle…food. Aziraphale wasn’t very good at depriving himself things he enjoyed. Especially things he enjoyed a bit too much. Crowley had been more attentive since the bookshop burned down (and then didn’t), when he thought he’d lost Aziraphale (but hadn’t). He looked at Aziraphale a little longer than usual. He turned up sooner, and stayed later, than he used to do. It was becoming almost _reliable_, his lithe frame leaning against tables, fingers dangling over bookcase curios.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. _Enough of that, _he thought primly_. _Don’t let your mind wander where it didn’t belong. Best if things went right back to their usual courses. _Anyway, _Crowley surely needed a break, too? They might not have sides to report to, but a demon is a demon and he had plenty of inconveniences to visit upon the world. That was why he suggested that Crowley go antagonize some airbases (deservedly after recent events)—and give them both some breathing space. Crowley would chalk it up to Aziraphale’s fear of going too fast in any direction. He would be wrong, though. It was just that long association with heaven’s archangels had taught Aziraphale one lesson extraordinarily well: asking for too much was the way to be denied all. His mouth twitched downward in a puckered frown. Because of the wine, of course. A little too sour. He could perform a small miracle and sort out the misbalanced tannins. _Crowley _would_… _He lifted the glass to the light—

And the phone rang. Aziraphale started up to answer it, setting his wine carefully on the blotter.

“Yes, hello?”

No one answered back. Or at least, he didn’t think so at first. Some sort of shuffling noise echoed through the earpiece.

“Hello, yes—?” The trouble with his antique rotary phone is he never knew who it was on the other line. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked again. “Is that you?” He wasn’t sure why he should think so, except that Crowley was nearly the only person who ever called, and the only reason he’d got up to answer the phone. This time the shuffling sound was clearer. Possibly that of a smartphone dragged across a shaven chin.

“A--angel,” Crowley groaned. “M’hurt.”

Aziraphale’s heart slammed into the back of his sternum.

“I’m coming! I’ll be right there—” he said, remembering suddenly that he didn’t know _where_. “How do I find you?”

There was a terrible sound stirring on the other line. Ragged, awful breathing. It scraped itself together to form the word _Tadfield. _Just that. Nothing else. The line had gone dead. Aziraphale’s throat constricted violently: Crowley was hurt? How could he be? Unless Hell—or Heaven—? A moment later and the doors slammed shut behind him with enough force to jostle his unfinished wine.

There was only one road in and out of Tadfield, but it would still take a miracle to find Crowley. Aziraphale was prepared to use them all. It began with a motorized scooter he’d spied in the street in London; he didn’t have the faintest clue how to drive, but Madame Tracey did, and he remembered just enough to manage. The rest had been a mere bending of matter—of folding reality under him and moving at speed unhindered by the strictures of gravity and friction. _Hastur? Gabriel? Beelzebub? Michael? _He thought, along with plenty more nameless terrors. Aziraphale’s heart thundered in his ears just as it had the _last _time he’d miracle his way to Tadfield, back when the world was ending. In fact, he planned to check the very same airbase—except his attention had been suddenly, harrowingly attracted by the bleary streak of familiar headlamps. The scooter skidded to an unsteady halt and Aziraphale blinked into the gloom.

The Bentley rested some twenty feet off the pavement, the rear bumper obliterated, tangled metal shoved too far forward into the cab. _An accident? _Crowley drove too fast, always much too fast, but someone had _hit_ the Bentley, not the other way around. Aziraphale slid down the bank, still wet from recent rain, and scrambled to get at the driver’s seat.

It was empty. The windscreen was missing, however, and a dark stain crusted the edges of jagged glass. Aziraphale knew it was blood; Crowley must have been thrown _through _it. He pursed suddenly dry lips. _Ethereal beings aren’t killed in car accidents, _he told himself. _He’ll be perfectly all right. _Aziraphale followed the headlight beam. Just ahead, stalks of grass had been bruised and bent. He tried not to notice that they were also stained dark and slick. _It will be all right. I’ll see to that. It’s a bit of miracle, that’s all. Just a bit of—_

“Oh. Crowley.”

If Aziraphale made a plaintive moaning in his throat, who could blame him? Crowley lay still, and quiet, and at all the wrong angles. Bones had fractured. They pierced skin. Aziraphale knelt against sodden ground to brush away the hair from Crowley’s face. One golden eye had been obscured by blood; the other rolled and refocused.

“_Zir. Ffl?_”

“Don’t—don’t move,” Aziraphale breathed. He didn’t need more light; he didn’t _want _to see the damage, only to fix it. His hands spread over his friend, fingers radiating like antennae. Ribs, lungs, legs. Left arm, right wrist, cheekbone, jaw. Crowley jolted as sinews re-knit, but the sound that escaped him came out _wrong. _It had no strength to it, no air despite the punctured lung once more capable of gasping.

“That—that’s everything, dear,” Aziraphale whispered. “Crowley? We, we can’t stay here in the dark, dear boy. It’s—it isn’t at all comfortable, and you really must get up.”

But Crowley didn’t respond. His eyes stared up, hazy and dull. Aziraphale leaned over him, pressing hands to his chest: a light flutter _just there_. Crowley hadn’t abandoned his body, but even with Aziraphale forcing his corporeal heart to beat and his lungs to fill with air, he appeared to be dying right before his eyes.

“You _can’t_ discorporate!” Aziraphale pleaded. Because Hell would have Crowley, then, wouldn’t they? He could not let them. He would not. _Oh_, he thought desperately, _What have I missed_? W_hat is still so wrong? _He searched about, frantic, but the answer was all around him. It soaked the ground they knelt upon, stained through Crowley’s jacket and now Aziraphale’s, too.

There was a rule—_Her_ rule—about blood. Medical men from antiquity got the physical properties and quantities all wrong, but they were right about one thing. Blood is life, and Crowley had very little of it left. _Think, think. _Aziraphale tugged at his hair, absently raking Crowley’s blood through the cotton-white curls. The human bodies they inhabited, through which they acted in the world and upon one another, depended on blood, but he could not miracle in into being. Like life and love, it only counted if freely given. _Transfusion_, that’s what humans called it. _That’s it!_ Humans were all so clever and Anathema was so close by. Aziraphale cast his eyes about for Crowley’s phone, which, despite everything, he was still gripping tightly.

“I’m sorry, dear—just a moment,” Aziraphale grazed Crowley’s fingers, to take it, but his own were shaking so badly he had trouble activating the screen. _How did they work, again? _Contacts. Yes, that was it. Three names only; Aziraphale and Anathema and Warlock. The angel’s throat squeezed shut, and he forced back sudden emotion as he jabbed at the number. _Please, _Aziraphale prayed, _Be home._

CHAPTER 2

Anathema shoved the passenger door open almost before Dick Turpin stopped rolling. The asphalt sounded gritty beneath her boots; she took note of it, and of the black streaks that skidded from where she stood to the badly damaged Bentley. It meant the wheels had not rolled; they’d been shoved. Her brow wrinkled.

“He was parked,” she said, walking briskly toward the ditch.

“Why would he stop in the middle of the road?” Newt asked, almost slipping as they scrambled down the bank. Anathema only shook her head. It wasn’t important just then.

They found them together in a pool of headlight. Aziraphale cradled Crowley against his chest, arms wrapped tight about him, face salt-stained with tears. Anathema could tell by the waves of energy radiating from his hands that he was still at work somehow, but Crowley lay limp and motionless even so. The angel gave her a shattered look.

“He needs blood _absolutely_ right away,” he said, voice hiccupping slightly. “It’s all I can do just to—to keep circulating what’s left.”

Anathema knelt next to Crowley. She couldn’t read ethereal auras but she didn’t need a divination to see the stakes were high. An ambulance would take much too long to reach them.

“Can you get him to the car? We’ll drive to Hospital.”

“Let me?” Newt moved to help, but Aziraphale wouldn’t let Crowley go. He lifted him from the ground and cradled him into the backseat.

“This is my fault,” he said shakily.

“It’s not,” Anathema reassured him as Newt pulled onto the road once more. She tried not to think about what would happen when they got there; no blood and also no wounds, heartbeat and breathing only by Aziraphale’s interference, snake eyes and only God knew what _else_ wasn’t normal about Crowley’s anatomy… Would the Hippocratic oath go far enough? She very much had her doubts. In the rearview, she could see Aziraphale weeping freely, tears leaving reflective salt stains.

“But it _is _my fault. I told him to go. A-away. Because—because—” He didn’t finish. A sharp sound escaped from Crowley: a short, desperate intake of breath. Anathema turned quickly to see him shaking, fingers grasping, and then go utterly limp.

“He’s dying!” Aziraphale wailed, the words snagging to ribbons. “I can feel him _leaving_ me!”

“Tell him not to! Tell him he can’t go!” Anathema barked.

“You can’t go,_” _Aziraphale whispered brokenly.

“LIKE YOU MEAN IT!” Anathema shouted, then turned fiercely to Newt. “_Drive faster!”_

“It doesn’t go any faster!” Newt squeaked. Anathema knew that; she also knew Aziraphale couldn’t miracle them back to town while also trying to keep Crowley’s body going, either. She turned in her seat, to the sight of Crowley’s limp hand where it cascaded over Aziraphale’s knee.

“There _has _to be something closer. A clinic?”

“Isn’t there a big event center out here?” Newt asked, and behind him, Aziraphale gasped.

“The Nuns! Where Adam was born,_ not born_—It’s just off the road—just there!”

Anathema grabbed the wheel and pulled hard before they overshot the exit. Dirk Turpin skidded into the turn, Newt screamed, and soon they were barreling toward the nunnery.

***

If the proprietor of the Satanic-nunnery-come-events-venue, formerly known as Sister Mary Loquacious, had anticipated guests, she might have put the kettle on. She may also have found those iced biscuits, as they never really went bad. But she hadn’t, and didn’t, and was very unprepared for the desperate banging on her front doors. She’d barely got them unbolted when Anathema shoved her way through the gap.

“This was a hospital, wasn’t it?” she demanded, tugging her wool coat past the door jamb. Mary’s expression assumed one of business like acumen.

“If you must know, we are a reputable establishment for shooting and war games,” she said, but Newt had followed Anathema, and Aziraphale had followed Newt, carrying Crowley as he might a child. His skin was shining slightly in the gloom, and he seemed suddenly fierce and watchful. Mary quailed, and had every reason to.

“Oh—my goodness,” she whispered, mouth a perfect “o” of surprise. “Is that Master Crowley?”

Aziraphale did not answer her. He headed down the long hall as though he knew the place, leaving the others to scramble after. A door opened to reveal a room like a hospital suite, complete with a hospital bed beneath a wide window.

“I-I’m quite sure that wasn’t in here before,” Mary stuttered as Aziraphale lay Crowley ever so gently onto the cot. When he next looked at Mary, his eyes were a blistering blue and she felt as though her every thought had just blinkered on and off again. It wasn’t hypnosis or demonic charm or even angelic persuasion. It was instead the sudden blazing sense of enormous distance and the smallness of everything else except the words he said next:

“Help me. He needs blood.”

Mary nodded, glassy-eyed and obedient.

“There’s a field kit in the basement,” she said. “What kind of blood does he need?” 

Aziraphale looked like he might break in pieces.

“Mine,” he whispered. “He needs mine.”

Anathema helped Mary with the tourniquet and needles; Newt uncoiled clear plastic tubes. No one spoke until a stream of bright blood circled its way from Aziraphale’s own veins to Crowley’s.

It took ages.

It took quite a lot of blood.

It did not seem to be working.

“He really shouldn’t be so grey,” Mary said, the awe of Aziraphale’s first command wearing off. “Do you think he might be—”

“Tea,” Anathema interrupted.

“Oh, I’d love some!”

“No, go _make_ tea,” Anathema growled the words and turned her out of the room. She cast a meaningful look at Newt and bucked her head—_leave them alone._ Aziraphale didn’t move as they left. He did raise his head and give her a grateful nod.

“He’ll be ok,” Newt offered, giving her shoulder a tight squeeze as they walked. Anathema swallowed down half a sob.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, but without any conviction at all.

CHAPTER 3

Aziraphale could hear the rain again. It came soft against the windows, like a lullaby.

“Crowley, dear?” he asked. They were alone, the two of them, in the white-washed room. He had taken Crowley into his lap, heavy his head resting upon Aziraphale’s collar bone. He’d wrapped both arms about him again, feeling the angles of him and careful of the tether between them. Human bodies had a great deal of blood in them; he wondered idly how much you could live on—or live without.

There was a lot Aziraphale could live without. Technically, he could keep his body going without food or water, surviving on miracles and feeding off his own ethereal essence. He could live without sleep (had done, mostly), and without the creature comforts he and Crowley had just worked so hard to save in preventing Armageddon. But he hadn’t saved the world for any of those reasons. He’d saved the world because he couldn’t live without _Crowley_.

Crowley, who rescued plants Aziraphale got too busy to water, and doves and rabbits from attempted magic acts, and book pages smudged by careless shop-goers. Crowley, who fixed the angel wing mug after it toppled and not even miraculously; he’d simply restored it, by hand, like a piece of art that it most assuredly wasn’t. Crowley, first to break silences, first to give apologies, first to _come back for Aziraphale. _For all the petty inconveniences that Crowley visited upon the world, there were thousands of ways he balanced the books. Especially for Aziraphale. Always for Aziraphale. A hand reached out at all times. Just never really taken.

Aziraphale felt the ragged edge of his own desperation. It came shuddering and aching, and he knew, now, why he’d never told Crowley how much—how ever so much—he _loved_ him. Because you _lost_ things when you loved like that. Or rather, when you loved like that, you had so very much to lose.

“Crowley, I’m so sorry,” he whispered aloud again. But Crowley could not hear him. He’d shrunk far inside himself, down to where their blood mixed even now, carrying the essence of angels that weren’t quite angels. Aziraphale said he would find him, promised he’d come to him. So he pressed his fingers to Crowley’s chest, felt the hook and eye of his sternum, and descended from himself into that space between atoms where time slows and divisions bleed over.

Aziraphale felt about in the dark of Crowley’s essence. It would be easy enough to shine a light here. To blaze, to be golden and made of holy fire. But Crowley’s nature was a place of quiet and coolness and fragile, unsteady ground easily disturbed. It was a place that loved broken things.

_Where are you, my dear? _he asked.

_M’here, angel. _Crowley’s voice echoed, small but distinct. Somewhere ahead, Aziraphale sensed the last desperate finger hold of Crowley’s ethereal self, leaving claw marks in the corporeal.

_I was afraid you were going to leave me, Crowley._ It was so hard to see; Azirphale pushed out his own light, his own life, and tried to graft it to Crowley’s being. It waited there, small, pulsing, and quiet.

_Am ssstill, I think. M’sssorry, _Crowley said. _Too far to come back._

Aziraphale trembled; he could still feel his blood coursing into Crowley’s own.

_I can’t let you,_ he said. _I’m trying to save you—my blood for yours. A gift. _

‘_z__zz__iraphale, _Crowley sighed. _Don’t do thisss. Tired to death. Jussst go home._

He felt Crowley’s grip sliding, scrambling, sliding again. But they weren’t bodies now, were they? Just selves. He’d already trespassed into Crowley, taken steps without a body he’d not managed to do with one. Somehow he managed to slide a part of himself around his friend and lift it up a little higher from the waves of oblivion.

_No, I won’t have it. I need you here, _Aziraphale said. But he knew those weren’t the right words. _I’m afraid, do you see? I’m afraid of losing you and--_

Aziraphale heard footfalls on linoleum. There were voices, too: Anathema, Newt. Aziraphale felt himself being pulled up and out—_Crowley? I—love—_

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered. Around him, the cold walls of a stark room slid into place. Gently, Anathema touched his arm.

“Your wings, Aziraphale,” she whispered. He’d manifested them, and they sheltered Crowley in soft, shivering feathers. He didn’t know how long he’d been that way, both of them cocooned together in the dark. He held his breath. They slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted a wing to reveal Crowley’s face.

It had pinked over, almost rose-hued instead of the awful grey. His eyes remained shut, but movement tracked beneath the lids, and his human heart was beating on its own.

“My dear boy!” Aziraphale said, the words tumbling over themselves as he pressed Crowley closer in a self-forgetting embrace. It may have been too much. A moment later, Crowley’s breath hitched and turned to a sudden fit of coughing.

“The—hell? That you, angel?” Crowley made an attempt to twist round in Aziraphale’s grip, which tugged at the needle in his arm.

“Master Crowley, sir, you’re still attached to—eh—the one with wings,” Mary said, smiling in an incoherently sweet way. She slipped the needle out, leaving a little bubble of blood that Crowley glared at as if trying to process and failing.

“I feel like hell,” he said. “Am I—why am I in your _lap?”_

“Oh. Well,” Aziraphale had turned slightly pink himself, despite being three pints down. Anathema and Newt, standing arm in arm at the foot of the hospital bed and bleary eyed, managed to giggle.

“You were in an accident,” Mary said by way of explanation. “And all of your blood came out.”

Crowley gave her a bemused look and pushed himself to sitting.

“Accident?” He asked, then covered his face with both hands. “Ah _shit,_ my car.” He’d been still mostly draped over Aziraphale; now he swung his legs over the cot and wobbled to standing.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Aziraphale asked, scrambling even less gracefully to his feet. Crowley took hold of his arm for balance and hunted pockets for sunglasses.

“Fine,” he lied. Then pointed over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Wings, angel. Can’t go out like that.”

***

The drive wasn’t long. Aziraphale spent it staring at the line of Crowley’s jaw, the way light slid off him, the way he tilted his head to one side. He spent it thinking, too, of just how Crowley looked in the pub after the bookshop fire, as though his spine had been torn out, as though he could do no more than drink and drink and wait for the end. And for the first time, Aziraphale understood. 

“There it is,” Anathema said as they rolled to a stop. Crowley climbed out to survey the damage, Aziraphale still grasping him at the elbow (just in case).

“Ah. No wonder I feel like hell,” he muttered.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Anathema asked.

“Well. Went through that—and landed there,” Crowley said, pointing.

It wasn’t an answer, Aziraphale thought as Crowley slid his hand along the Bentley’s bumper, pulling it into shape with the popping sound of undenting steel.

“Are you sure you should be—erm, that is, I could do that,” he offered.

“You don’t know where the gears go,” Crowley reminded him. And in any case, the car looked almost normal again. In another minute, he had it running—and it backed itself onto the berm ahead of Dirk Turpin.

Anathema turned to Aziraphale.

“You’re not going to let him drive, are you?” she asked. Crowley sidled up and gave her a gentle squeeze that he could claim was getting his balance but was in fact as close to a hug as he dared.

“M’fine, book girl.” It was soft. “Thanks.”

Aziraphale watched their awkward reciprocities as if he were looking through a window. He owed his everything to Anathema at the moment; he hoped she saw that in his face—heard it in his desperate thank you—or at least appreciated the fact that enormous pastries had appeared in her kitchen. But he also wanted them to leave. And he wanted a moment alone with Crowley.

They had been seated in the Bentley for some ten minutes before Crowley’s brassy attitude crumpled.

“Angel, I really _don’t _think I can drive us back to London,” he said resting his head on the steering wheel. “I’m shaky as hell.”

“Well, I don’t think I can miracle us there,” Aziraphale admitted.

“Shame. As I don’t relish sleeping in this death trap, either, if I’m honest.” Crowley sighed, and Aziraphale fanned his courage a bit. Start with the easy part…

“Crowley, why _were_ you stopped on the road?” he asked. He expected a witty retort. But Crowley couldn’t muster one.

“Ah… Well.” A wry smile tugged at his mouth, quirked it up in a way Aziraphale found almost beatific. “Was a deer in the road. Had a broken leg. Couldn’t just leave it that way, so I got out and sorted it. Then, when I climbed back _in_, it all went bang.”

Aziraphale shifted in his seat, turning sideway to look Crowley in the eye. Not a host of vengeful demons, just a hit and run and an injured deer that Crowley couldn’t leave unmended. _Soft._ He thought. _Beautiful._

“You love broken things,” he said, and knew his voice trembled as he did so. His impulse was to fuss. To clear his throat, to sit straight. But he didn’t. He leaned against his own seat’s rest, eyes hooded, heart swelling. “I want to be that brave enough to love like that.”

Crowley hadn’t moved, but his eyes, so much better at seeing in the dark than Aziraphale’s, reflected back the faintest warm gleam.

“So. You _did_ tell me you loved me tonight?” he asked, a sweet, anxious crease in the center of his forehead. “I heard you.”

“Y-yes,” Aziraphale hiccupped the word, which threatened to turn into weeping again. “Yes, I did. Even though I told you to go away. I am always telling you to go away—or to wait.”

“I’d have come back, angel,” Crowley reminded him. Aziraphale only shook his head.

“But Crowley, you almost _didn’t_. I thought I lost you. I have wasted every chance to tell you how I feel, and you wouldn’t even know why! I was just so afraid of loving you—because—because—”

“Because I am fallen,” Crowley finished for him. And _God_, it was gentle. Aziraphale fought waves of painful recognition; how many times had he hurt him? He took Crowley’s hand, warm and so wonderfully close and alive.

“No, Crowley, no,” He said, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “I don’t think you’re fallen in any of the ways that matter.”

Crowley had softened, going slack around the edges. He didn’t pull away from Aziraphale; he just waited, quiet and patient, and unsure. Aziraphale breathed deep.

“I want to love you, Crowley. Even if I’m terrified of losing you, too. To be brave enough to _risk_.”

And the thing was, Aziraphale knew he was in the presence of someone who could teach him how.


End file.
